Children of wealthy N.J. business tycoon fight over multibillion estate

Joseph Hsu/Court Pool photoWinston Wen-Young Wong, 58, with spokesman Herb Berkowitz. Outside Essex Superior in Newark today. Wong contends he is the rightful administrator of the estate of his father, Yung-Ching Wang, a Taiwanese business tycoon.

NEWARK -- Nine children of the late Taiwanese tycoon Yung-Ching Wang bickered over basic facts of their father's life today in a courtroom in Newark as they jostled to control his multibillion dollar estate.

Few points escaped contention among the family's three teams of lawyers, from the number of Wang's wives to the extent of his New Jersey connections.

"The case is very complex," said Raymond Wong, a New York attorney who attended the hearing as an observer. "His companies are spread over more than five countries. His reach is in Taiwan, the United States, China, and all the 1.2 billion people there all know him."

The case arose in part because Wang, one of the world's wealthiest people, did not leave a will when he died last year in Short Hills.

The 91-year-old man left nine of his children to untangle a global web of assets and pick at their father's legacy in public.

After roughly two hours of hearings, closely followed by 15 journalists from Taiwan and China, Superior Court Judge Walter Koprowski said he needed more information before he decides if he has the authority to deem Wang's eldest son, Winston Wen-Young Wong, 58, the estate's administrator.

"It's an issue that requires some discovery so that I can make a jurisdictional ruling as to whether this matter can proceed," Kaprowski said at the hearing.

He scheduled a Sept. 11 meeting among the family's lawyers as the next step in a process that could last months.

That was good enough for Wong, who contends in his complaint that about $7.5 billion has been stashed in various trusts, much far-flung locations like Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands.

"We are very encouraged by the judgment," Wong said in a press conference after the hearing. "I have no doubt that New Jersey was the epicenter of my father's business world over the last 30 years."

Wong listened impassively during the hearing as a lawyer for his half-sister, Susan Wang, argued the state figured little in the family patriarch's global empire.

"The Chairman did not have assets in New Jersey at the time of his death," Lawrence Neher said in a statement. "The Court does not have jurisdiction over this matter."

Wang, a part-time New Jersey resident who died during a business visit in October, was born poor in Taiwan and worked in a charcoal mine as a 5-year-old boy.

He later secured a $700,000 loan from a U.S. agency and formed Formosa Plastics Group in 1954, which grew to become the world's largest producer of polyvinyl chloride resins, used for making household items as common and diverse as garbage bags, Christmas trees, plastic bottles and printing ink.

Last year, the company reportedly reaped more than $60 billion in sales.

Wong's lawyer, Michael R. Griffinger, displayed in court a chart of the conglomerate, riven with lines, small national flags and pictures of different family members who control its different sections.

The nine children born to women other than Wang's wife of 72 years, have formed temporary alliances as the case continues. Walter Wang, a brother of Winston, also hopes to be deemed the estate's administrator.

At the hearing, however, his lawyer, Michael Dell, joined Walter's in trying to persuade the judge a New Jersey court could hear the case.